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The Saturday Word: Second Opinions

By Sarah Wheaton July 18, 2009 9:24 amJuly 18, 2009 9:24 am

In another sign that the White House is placing a higher priority on getting health legislation passed swiftly than in having it done through bipartisanship, President Obama implied that Republicans have no place to criticize his bill for running up the deficit:

“First, the same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue – believe it or not – that health reform will lead to record deficits,” Mr. Obama says in his weekly address. “That’s simply not true,” he adds, saying his program would change incentives and cut costs.

“I want to be very clear,” he says, “I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.”

The message is probably directed as much at skeptics in his own party as opponents on the right. The Times’s Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn report that there are three reasons why Democrats are nervous even though they have made substantial progress in advancing legislation, one of which is an assessment by the Congressional Budge Office predicting that Mr. Obama’s changes would not actually slow the growth of health care spending.

In the Republicans’ response, Senator Jon Kyl seizes on the budget office findings to critique the president’s plan, saying it would not help the economy.

While the president derides “talking and tinkering and letting the problem fester,” Mr. Kyl sounds an alarm about moving too quickly:

But the President and some Democrats insist we must rush this plan through. Why? Because the more Americans know about it, the more they oppose it. Something this important needs to be done right, rather than done quickly.

The White House has generally been on the defensive lately about its economic efforts. Lawrence H. Summers, Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, acknowledged that unemployment is higher than the administration had anticipated, but insisted the stimulus was nonetheless working. And Politico’s Victoria McGrane reports: “The Obama administration’s $50 billion program to curb foreclosures isn’t working, and the White House knows it.”

Walter Conkite, R.I.P. The fact that these politicians are even giving these addresses via YouTube underscores the fractured media environment today. But there was a time when virtually everyone got their news from the same source: Walter Cronkite, who died Friday evening at the age of 92. Mr. Obama released a statement:

For decades, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted voice in America. His rich baritone reached millions of living rooms every night, and in an industry of icons, Walter set the standard by which all others have been judged.

He was there through wars and riots, marches and milestones, calmly telling us what we needed to know. And through it all, he never lost the integrity he gained growing up in the heartland.

But Walter was always more than just an anchor. He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down. This country has lost an icon and a dear friend, and he will be truly missed.

C.I.A. The House Intelligence Committee has opened an investigation into whether the Bush administration broke the law by not informing Congress about a plan to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders.

Ethics The House is also investigating some of its own. The Hill reports that the ethics committee has opened 15 new cases.

Campaign Cash The Washington Post finds Republican Senate candidates “posting strong fundraising totals for the second quarter of 2009, putting them in position to try to halt their party’s recent losing streak.”

The American people don’t actually want a health care program. If they did, they would be willing to pay for it. Labor unions tell us they really love universal health care, but their members aren’t going pay for it. Put your money where your mouth is, folks. Moderate Democrats now reflect the national pulse. They are reading it quite well. And they don’t care much about the far left opinions of the average Caucus blogger.

“But the President and some Democrats insist we must rush this plan through. Why? Because the more Americans know about it, the more they oppose it. Something this important needs to be done right, rather than done quickly.”
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Rush this through, Kyl? Like the invasion of Iraq, Jon?

A major restructuring of health care costs must be implemented. Costs for doing nothing are worse than coming to grips with a different approach to the problem.

Handwringing by Republicans who merely want to disembowel change and keep things as profitable for their insurance pals is unacceptable. So, yes, let’s draw the proverbial line in the sand, and stop playing games. Self-identify as in favor of the insurance industry and the status quo (thereby rewarding the ‘efforts’ of lobbyists and the cash currently exchanging hands in Congress) or identify as an elected official who wants to see a sensible, responsible system of a public option in addition to the private plans. Just state your position and tell the truth for once.

There is no honorable reason why this health care bill needs to be rushed through Congress. The reason Obama is pushing so hard is because he doesn’t want Americans to know what’s really in the bill. The more they know the more they’ll realize this is a lose / lose situation for them.

“The strategy is as it was in 1993 and ’94, to conduct this charm offensive on the surface. But behind the scenes, to use front groups and third-party advocates and ideological allies. And those on Capitol Hill who are aligned with them, philosophically, to do the dirty work. To demean and scare people about a government-run plan, try to make people not even remember that Medicare, their Medicare program, is a government-run plan that has operated a lot more efficiently.

And also, the people who are enrolled in our Medicare plan like it better. The satisfaction ratings are higher in our Medicare program, a government-run program, than in private insurance. But they don’t want you to remember that or to know that, and they want to scare you into thinking that through the anecdotes they tell you, that any government-run system, particularly those in Canada, and UK, and France that the people are very unhappy.” (Wendell Potter)

How much have special interest groups given to Sen. Kyle so that he can do the dirty work for them and continue to receive their support?

Obama losing some support among nervous Dems
By BETH FOUHY (AP) – 8 hours ago
NEW YORK — Could it be that President Barack Obama’s Midas touch is starting to dull a bit, even among members of his own party?

Honey Honey to many an American Ear. Also glad to note it dint take that long for Americans to wake up to the debacle that they elected Purely for Symbolizm Reasons.

The political football known as the healthcare debate has accidently revealed another double standard. President Obama and the Democrats repeatedly and rightly chastised George W. Bush for his stubborn refusal to yield in the face of truth and fact. On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to end this conduct as our next President.

Yet in the current healthcare debate, President Obama has once again adopted the conduct of his predecessor, backtracking as he has done with several of his campaign promises.

It doesn’t take the best and brightest from Obama’s Ivy League inner circle of the “best and brightest” to see that the most pressing crisis in our country is the unemployment rate, which is having a withering affect on black America that Obama appears unwilling or unable to address.

This African American attorney supported Hillary Clinton for President because the Clinton legacy stands as irrefutable evidence of what this country can do when opportunity flows freely to all and the President is focused on creating jobs, not on scoring Reaganesque photo-op publicity like President Obama seems content to do.

Yet President Obama continues to cast his healthcare plan as some sort of silver bullet to cure what ails the American economy.

A completely healthy young person, with one and often two college degrees who cannot find work in this economy does not need a government run healthcare program. That won’t pay student loan payments, and it won’t put food on their table or help them with their retirement.

President Obama’s policies appear to be forward thinking, but at the expense of the present. Real people, ordinary Americans all over this country are struggling to figure out where their next meal is going to come from and looking at the end of unemployment benefits with no light at the end of the tunnel. President Obama, like his predecessor, chooses to ignore tens of millions of Americans in that very circumstance. Why? To pass a historic healthcare plan that will put him in a prominent place among American Presidents 50 years from now?

To say that we can only handle one major problem at a time is shortsighted. We have neglected health care, education, global warming and our dependence on foreign oil for decades. The country will be spending 1 out of every 5 dollars on health care in a few years if we do nothing and businesses, both large and small, will not be able to compete in a 21st century global economy.

The President says Bush had control of Congress the last 8 years. Blatant lies come out of his mouth consistently. Obviously, the Dems controlled Congress his last 2 years as everything fell apart. Other deliberate and knowing lies that will have a major impact on everyone’s lives for decades to come include: a public health plan only keeps insurance companies honest. He knows, as the insurance industry has publicly said and all epxerts have confirmed, that the provate industry cannot compete with Medicare reimbursements and the private industry shuts down as over 100 million people migrate to the government run plan in the first 12 months. This is a deliberate Obama lie who cares nothing of the consequences as long as he gets govt. to control every aspect of our lives and socialize our country resulting in the rapid decline that all other socialized nations experienced.

Thse of you who wish to keep the healthcare situation as it is, maintain the status quo, are acting n behalf f the Insurance industry.
Frm what I can see, they do not need any more allies. You can care about them, But what you should realize is that they do not care about you. THey care more about their profits and the bonuses than the health of the policy holders-no matter how many lovely and cute cmmercials they put on television. You are being fooled.

Look at who is really going broke-cities, states, small businesses, big businesses and one of the big reasons is the cost of health care. We need to reboot the whole system-single payer will eventually happen.

When will single payer happen? When the health care prblem runs aground and brings the entire economy with it-just like the finance industry did to us-just like the automobile industry did to us…The well connected health care peple will stall the issue until we have nwhere else to go. They will keep their hard earned mney and the rest of the ecnmy can go screw itself Haven’t we seen this game before?

So if you chose to believe that a gvernment bureacrat is going to get in between the patient and the doctor, then surely you must know that a corporate administrator and a crprate bureacrat and a corporate CEO are already doing that. Except that the government bureacrat is not banking on a huge bnus for all the plicy holders that he screws out of medicine, procedures and visits t the doctor-but all that does translate to a bigger bnus for the corporate flks…Doubt it? Please explain to me.
I work in the health care industry….I am a physician assistant. I see first hand the games that insurance companies play with policy holders, with hospitals, with doctors, with pharmacists etc.

We really need to break this monoply of power down and install a single payer plan for all citizens. Not just citizens that the corporations want to insure.

To all you ignorant, lazy Republicans. Your mantra “tax and spend” is ridiculous. If you’re going to spend, you have to pay. Spend and spend as practiced by Cheney and Bush doesn’t work. You complain that taxes take too much. Solution, work harder. You complain people on various assistance programs live off your labors, join them if you think it’s so wonderful. You don’t want to pay for aid for the neediest among us, don’t want to pay for services like fire, police, medical benefits for the elderly or poor. Don’t want to have higher education and even basic education for all children if it cuts into your finances. Work harder. Don’t want equal rights for all if it means you may be asked to contribute. Work harder. I was a Republican.The new Republican dogma, religious intolerance and self centered, self righteousness are driving away anyone with a conscious or a brain. Let’s just change the name from Republican to Taliban. You can shout your outrage, threaten, whine and complain all you want, your party brought us here.

“This is a deliberate Obama lie who cares nothing of the consequences as long as he gets govt. to control every aspect of our lives and socialize our country resulting in the rapid decline that all other socialized nations experienced.”

Socialism? Please, that is such a tired and old fear-mongering tactic that won’t work now. Every other civilized nation has health care for all its citizens and does well with it.

Very well said. I left the Republican Party because it became a fundamentalist party catering to poorly educated or superstitious fools with a small cadre of elites to manipulate them. The reasoned voices got drowned out and continue to get shouted down.

It has truly become the “what’s in it for me” party.

Having said that, I do worry that filling up the health care trough without incentivizing judicious feeding at the trough will create a fiduciary disaster. Unless you are closely involved or aware of the health care industry, along with the consumerism and profiteering within it, you cannot truly appreciate what I am saying. It’s not a scare tactic. It’s reality.

We need a better health care safety net for honest and hard-working folks. We don’t need another bloated entitlement that enables abusive resource consumption. There isn’t even a provision in the House bill for more aggressive enforcement to prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits. If you have never been to an Emergency Room in a border state, you have no idea how absurd the situation has become.

We need health care reform. We need the public option. The free market will show who will survive. Without the competition of the public plan, the private plans will continue to cause skyrocketing prices,with insurance bureaucrats denying care to keep profits up.

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